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Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

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Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#71

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

jacquesm wrote: post #44
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some people have good experiences, but it's still incredibly reckless. Chargers without proper safety features and which don't conform to electrical isolation standards could render your $1000+ machine worthless in a puff of smoke, or, worse, kill you.

The 'Original Apple' item shown at the bottom of the post doesn't look as if it fared much better though. The magic smoke definitely came out on that one and whoever owned it was lucky it ended there and didn't end with an actual fire.

Apple's own charger follows safety standards. It might blow up, but it won't take your laptop with it.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#72

Post by DanBC »

guelo wrote: post #66
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some people have good experiences, but it's still incredibly reckless. Chargers without proper safety features and which don't conform to electrical isolation standards could render your $1000+ machine worthless in a puff of smoke, or, worse, kill you.

Nobody in the history of personal computers has been killed by a charger.

You can't know that. You can't know that there haven't been house fires caused by a charger, for example.

Here's a recent house fire that killed five people, started by a phone charger.

http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/10/phone-charger-started-fire-tha...

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#73

Post by austenallred »

palmeida wrote: post #57
Analemma_ wrote: post #2

My takeaway from this is that the $80 Apple charger is definitely safer and has higher-quality components than the $12 cheapo Chinese charger, but not nearly so much better that it solely explains the price difference, and that Apple is making a healthy margin on these things. So my question is, is anyone selling a quality charger without the Apple tax? Is there anyone making, say, $40 chargers that have the componen…

On ebay there are a couple that say genuine http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Original-AC-Power-Adapter-Ap... I ordered one yesterday (not from this dealer in question) that also said genuine. Let's see what they will send to me.

>On eBay

>say genuine

Having been an eBay buyer/seller for a long time, I would put way less stock in someone on eBay saying a product is "genuine" than you appear to be.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#74

Post by austenallred »

DarkTree wrote: post #32
throwaway420 wrote: post #30

Despite the visual appeal of their products, Apple normally does a very good job with prioritizing function over form except in this case with the charger wire being so fragile and thin. I know I'm not the most careful and delicate person in the world, but the failure rate here is ridiculous compared to other similar products I own. The end of the cable gets frayed every single time. Otherwise, Apple makes ridiculous…

Honestly, I've never had the frayed problem with my macbook chargers, even with 2 years of use. However, I have had to buy 2 chargers since my original one because they will stop working after a couple of years. That's quite frustrating.

I've had the same problem. That being said, I've never had a pair of headphones that didn't short out, so maybe I'm just not good to my cables.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#75

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

guelo wrote: post #66
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some people have good experiences, but it's still incredibly reckless. Chargers without proper safety features and which don't conform to electrical isolation standards could render your $1000+ machine worthless in a puff of smoke, or, worse, kill you.

Nobody in the history of personal computers has been killed by a charger.

I doubt that short circuits have never killed anyone. That's not the only way a charger could kill you: DanBC points out the risk of fire, which is also a possibility.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#76

Post by XorNot »

Analemma_ wrote: post #2

My takeaway from this is that the $80 Apple charger is definitely safer and has higher-quality components than the $12 cheapo Chinese charger, but not nearly so much better that it solely explains the price difference, and that Apple is making a healthy margin on these things. So my question is, is anyone selling a quality charger without the Apple tax? Is there anyone making, say, $40 chargers that have the componen…

The problem is the market at the moment is terrible.

When buy genuine Apple or Samsung you know the quality is good. But when you pay something closer to what it should cost, who knows what you're getting? Could be a decent charger, could be heavily marked up Chinese junk.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#77

Post by lxmorj »

cjensen wrote: post #53
strictnein wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Every single charger we've owned has had to be replaced after a year or two. The only thing worse are the Apple USB cables. Complete junk.

I have seven year-old chargers which work fine. Neither you nor I are unicorns: there are plenty of others for whom it breaks constantly or never breaks. I'd love to know what it is we do differently.

Wrap it and unwrap it multiple times per day. Simply having two and keeping one at the office and one at home will 4X the lifespan of your charger, since you aren't wrapping it daily.

I also Sugru mine like this on both ends of the cable: http://d1u2s20mo6at4b.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/appl...

I'm considering making a mold so the Sugru looks nice when done and selling robustified chargers on Shopify. I already have a shipping business (MonthlyBoxer.com) so that part is easy. Thinking perhaps about offering a discount for returning the broken charger to us for refurbishing, so we can offer both new and refurb chargers.

Anecdotally the Sugru doubles the life of the charger cables (and makes your charger much more identifiable). I'd need to charge $99 to make it work, but it's fairly cheap to throw together a site and reply to the myriad forum posts saying "where can I buy a better Macbook charger" with a link to gauge interest.

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#78

Post by bbatha »

throwaway420 wrote: post #30

Despite the visual appeal of their products, Apple normally does a very good job with prioritizing function over form except in this case with the charger wire being so fragile and thin. I know I'm not the most careful and delicate person in the world, but the failure rate here is ridiculous compared to other similar products I own. The end of the cable gets frayed every single time. Otherwise, Apple makes ridiculous…

Leaving a loop before wrapping the small end largely fixes the problem with the cables. Like so [1]. Though I shouldn't have to do it the first place.

1: http://www.tested.com/tech/5480-how-to-properly-coil-a-macbo...

Re: Macbook charger teardown: surprising complexity inside Apple's power adapter

#80

Post by Brakenshire »

XorNot wrote: post #76
Analemma_ wrote: post #2

My takeaway from this is that the $80 Apple charger is definitely safer and has higher-quality components than the $12 cheapo Chinese charger, but not nearly so much better that it solely explains the price difference, and that Apple is making a healthy margin on these things. So my question is, is anyone selling a quality charger without the Apple tax? Is there anyone making, say, $40 chargers that have the componen…

The problem is the market at the moment is terrible. When buy genuine Apple or Samsung you know the quality is good. But when you pay something closer to what it should cost, who knows what you're getting? Could be a decent charger, could be heavily marked up Chinese junk.

It's because the market is so fragmented. USB-C and USB power delivery will do a huge amount of good.

The USB smartphone charger market is starting to produce genuinely well made third party products.

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